Do the Details Matter? (#238)
The Confident Leader
BOOST YOUR LEADERSHIP IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
In the television show The Bear, the star is Carmen, a professionally-trained chef who is preparing to open a fine-dining restaurant. His team’s experience amounts to running a mere sandwich shop. He sends his right-hand person, Richie, to training. What transpires offers a profound lesson for all leaders.
“The magic in business is found in the smallest of details.”
– Richard Branson (English business magnate)
This Week’s Edition
Sometimes leadership can distance us too far from the details. Are you helping your team recognize that success is in the details?
Clarify Your Thinking
Carmen sends Richie to train at the top restaurant in Chicago for one week. When he arrives, he is assigned to polish the forks, which he thinks is beneath him. Because of his attitude, he approaches his work with disdain.
Every day, he struggles to get out of bed because he thinks his menial task is a scheme by Carmen to punish him by exiling him to this “training.”
To this point, Richie has failed to grasp the fullness of his opportunity and has not discovered why he is there. You might be leading someone who is the epitome of Richie.
Old Thinking: This is so boring. I can’t believe I have to do this. It is beneath me. I should be focused on bigger things, things that have a larger impact. This is a waste of my time.
New Thinking: The details matter. If we don’t do the small things with excellence, how will we ever be able to do the big things well? It’s the details that are important and have created the momentum and success we’ve achieved to date.
Thoughts Lead to Actions
As the training week unfolds, Richie starts to realize that the whole restaurant is paying attention to every single detail, no matter how small.
- The meticulous preparation of each dish
- The precise timing of the delivery of the food
- The specific preferences of each diner
One situation provides Richie with the turning point. A server overhears his table lamenting the end of their trip and their inability to visit an iconic Chicago pizzeria. Armed with this overheard information, the restaurant team springs into action. They order a pizza from the iconic establishment, pick it up, recraft it, and serve it to the diners, who are surprised and delighted and left wondering how the restaurant knew.
After witnessing the effect of understanding a small detail, Richie transforms his entire mindset. He starts to engage. He desires to participate in creating that level of impact, even if it means focusing on the specifics. His transformation was evident to everyone.
Details matter. Focusing on details (to an almost obsessive degree) can generate a wave of momentum that propels you, your team, and your organization towards achieving its vision. Here are three things to consider:
Step 1: Determine if you care about the details.
Step 2: If so, determine which details are important. Which details have generated the outcomes that you deem successful?
Step 3: Codify the details, institutionalize them, model them, train them, hold people accountable for them, and celebrate them.
They say the devil is in the details. No, he’s not. His job is to distract you from the details. Well-done details compound over time and produce outsized results.
Boost Your Performance
What’s Your Opinion?
What is your current approach to focusing on the details? Share it with me at robin.pou@robinpou.com.
If you are going to be a leader, you might as well be a good one. Don’t let doubt count you out. Have a confident week!
Robin Pou, Chief Advisor and Strategist
We live to make bad leadership extinct so forward this newsletter to others who strive to be confident leaders.
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What is “The Confident Leader”?
During the Covid-19 Pandemic, I began a video series called “Panic or Plan?” It was designed to equip leaders to navigate the doubt they experienced and to rise in the confidence they needed to lead during turbulent times. It took off. I then started this newsletter to equip leaders in the same fashion each week for the doubt that crashes across the bow of their leaderSHIP.
